A Piece of Hell Built Just for Two
by The Jester Erebus
Summary: "Absinthe, he calls me. Absinthe, like the most tender of poisons coating his tongue. My man, he's a monster." Five years after the second Wizarding War, Harry and Severus just want to be free. ""I thought you were dead, but we found each other. We did, we found each other. And we're so fucked up."
1. Chapter 1

**Ummm okay so this is the story I deleted off of my AO3 account because I'm actually editing it and posting new chapters, and the direction you think the story is initially going...well...it totally isn't, not maybe in the way you think it is. ;) Look at me trying to be all mysterious and plot-twisty. This Severus is messed up and broken, but not the usual Snape that I write. I wanted to try something different and I thought of this story and a plot bunny hit me like a rock on the head, and I had to write more. Harry is just as messed up as Snape, too. Poor babies. :( So I'll be continuing this one, you know me, I'm horrible at updates, but I'll try my best! Life is a wild wreck right now, and lots of stuff is always flying at me top speed. UGH I never have the time to write anymore. :(**

 **Don't own it, never will, wish I did because I'd make like Hans Gruber; sitting on a beach earning 20%. Yippee Ki Yay, I suck today.**

Absinthe, he calls me.

Absinthe, like the most tender of poisons coating his tongue. He says I'm like a bit of sugar in a sour glass of lemonade. He says I'm cocoa on a cold, rainy day. I don't believe him, but the words are spun so prettily, like spider silk stretching over my veins. He whispers to me now, his breath ghosting over my ear. I shiver, succumbing to the embrace of darkness once more.

His word is my law, my all.

I want to go outside.

I want to see the sun. He forbids it. He says the sun is crass and bold, laughing at God's work with the gaudy array of colors and brightness. He says the world is much more becoming in the moon's light. I don't think that's true, but what he says becomes what I think. I push back the thoughts. He doesn't want me outside because people would talk, people would see me. Absinthe, he calls, and I forget what my true name is. I answer by kneeling before him, as alabaster fingers, cold and cruel, shift through my hair and to my flushed cheek. He says he likes it when I blush, he says it never tires him to see it. It must be unsatisfying to cling to such reactions, living through another, to remember what it was like once for him.

My man, he's a monster.

"Master," I call, "Master, I want to go outside..." and he denies me once more, closing the curtains with a snap. He frowns at me, impatient, annoyed. I crawl on the floor at his bare feet, begging for forgiveness, for supplication from my sins. I drag my hands up his leg and nuzzle his clothed knees. He was always tightly constricted in robes and trousers. The most skin I have ever seen is the creamy white flesh of his hands; the tops are soft to the touch, but the palms are hard and callused. Such beautiful hands on such an ugly yet somehow statuesque man, the man with his hooked nose like a crow's beak, but his voice is nothing like a harsh caw. His voice, god, that voice has the power to make me succumb to his darkest desires. His face is as sallow as ever, and more weary and craggy than ever before. His eyes are different too. Now they're alight with total and utter madness.

"No one must see you," he says, "do you really want them to take you away from me? Who else can give you what you need?"

 _Please. I just want to go outside._

"I'm sorry," I murmur as I blink up at him, wide eyed, a small flower left in the darkness to wilt, and he smiles, touching my cheek tenderly.

"You must show me." But I don't want to show him, I know what he wants. He wants something I cannot give anymore because I feel like a husk of what I once was...my mind aches from his Occluding, his constant perusing, my body is in pain from not being touched in a way that I ache for, I _want_ this I _don't_ want this-

 _THE DOORBELL RINGS AND SNAPS ME BACK TO MY OWN THOUGHTS. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO—_

"WE ARE LOOKNG FOR SOMEONE, HAVE YOU SEEN ANY SIGN OF AUROR HARRY POTTER, MR. JONESBY?

A voice cries in the back of my mind, reminding me of who I am. He stares at me silently and his eyes are my law as I cower under the table.

"You are free to look, Minister, if you wish."

"It's Accius...Accius Jonesby, is it? Well, I'm sure you've heard that Harry Potter's been missing for awhile now, about a year and a half. Only 24 and he was one of the best Auror's we've ever had. We're just going through old contacts, and any witches or wizards detected in a wide radius where we believe he might have gone missing. We suspect he was last seen in London, but he could be anywhere by now. We're branching out now, too. We really haven't found hide nor hair yet," _scribble scrabble_ of a quill against parchment. I can feel the feather shaft scratching itself in my flesh.

I want to be found. Save me from myself. Save me from my weakness.

 _THE DOOR STARTS TO CREAK SHUT OH_ _ _GOD__

"If we find Harry Potter, you'll see the news in the Daily Prophet, I'm sure. We're hoping for the best, that he's uninjured in in the right state of mind. Just Floo or send an owl to the Ministry if you hear anything, Mr. Jonesby."

And we are alone again, like always. "Harry...Harry James. Harry James...Potter. Harry James-"

"NO. DO NOT SPEAK—"

That's my name. I remember now. I am Harry James Potter. I am 24 years old. I had lived by myself, seeking danger and distraction. I had been the one to find him. I found him, and he was alone, just like me. My friends are looking for me. He- I bite my lip, peeling at the cracked skin with my teeth. I taste the blood and spit it out, the metallic sour taste revolting to me. His eyes are wild and glinting coal black with a stoking fire burning in the center and nothing ever makes his gaze that heated-

 _I hate you I hate you I love you I LOVE you_

I close my lips against the tongue that threatens to crash the world around us. I despise him. I hate how much I want him still, hate how much I love the way he makes me feel and I want him to touch me _right_ now. I murmur wordlessly, baring my throat to him. He would drink from my proffered wine, I knew him, my greedy, hungry man. He clutches his knife with the ebony handle that mocks a wizard's wand, his eyes glinting a promise of something dark and ominous yet predictable, now. God must weep for me, but I pay no mind to that. This addiction, this prison that I welcomed as my new home...my home is where he is. I had in the past thought about killing him. I might, someday. But as he comes closer to me, his eyes hungry and maw slightly open, revealing his passion, his hatred, his greed, and my downfall, my only salvation, this creature that had whisked me away... by my own pleas, no less. I had escaped the stagnation of my Purgatory and delved head first into the depths of Tartarus itself. My man, he's such a glutton. And I'm so weak for letting him use my body, his vessel now, as an outlet to these mortal sins.

Now I regret it.

My man, sometimes he lets things slip, even though he's closed off from the world, closed off from me. I see his weakness when my blood is spilled and he trembles, showing me something human despite the crazed monster within. The sight of my pain and the smell of my blood makes his chest soft and his harsh breath calm and steady. I clench with bitter teeth as he comes closer. I don't want to want this, but- When the blade comes closer, I move to the couch, leaning my proffered throat back. I shiver, but it's not cold. It's warm and comforting and still, it never tires me to feel this, to not feel completely numb for an instant. I never thought I'd amount to anything. This is my destiny. To provide pleasure for another. That's my purpose, that's why he keeps me here. I feel doubt now. Soon the river will run dry, and he'll find someone else to play these dangerous games with. I feel body weight pressing me down, but he's always ever so careful to position himself so that I never feel anything but his chest against mine, or his wiry arms pinning me down. I've never seen his cock or felt it's hardness, never felt the wet heat of it. My mouth used to water at the very thought but now it almost sickens me to even imagine it. My heartbeat skitters like a woodpecker, beating another deep hole in my chest.

And when he cuts me with the blade, I don't scream, they are just shallow slices against my chest. He needs this. I need this too. I have worse scars than this, and I flex the hand that Umbridge punished. He always heals them after. I don't mind either way.

I shiver and think of the shadow of my mother. He laps at the blood that trickles down the cuts, and his tongue is like sea salt in my wounds.

I think I know what finally drove him to insanity. I also know I'm partly to blame. I encouraged it, I goaded him, I had the misfortune to be born with these green chalcedony eyes. My eyes aren't as bright as they once were. They're more like stone then they ever were before, even during the War and after, when we counted our many losses, including his. I imagine the pain he endured on Voldemort's and Dumbledore's behalf, for the sake of my mother. I think he managed to hold onto the last bit of that pure, innocent love until the snake mauled him and we left him in a pool of congealing blood in the Shrieking Shack. I thought he was dead, I truly did.

But he wasn't. I wonder, is this revenge? This spilling of my blood and my seed mingling together like a sinful ambrosia not fit for any god but him? No. Because he is my god now.

After that he was lurking in the shadows, waiting for the best moment to strike like the very serpent that would have been his demise. He was Slytherin to the core, at least he was now, no matter what Dumbledore may have thought. I have seen the deep glaring scars on his throat on rare occasions when his bathroom door is cracked open and he stares at them in the steamy mirror with deadened eyes and his shirt isn't buttoned all the way up to his chin. I sometimes think he can't bear to look at them without some sort of fog misting over the reflection. I would consider it a battle wound and boldly wear it with pride as a war hero, but he covers up his body everyday with the same bleak, severe clothing that he always had worn at Hogwarts. His collar is even higher than it was before, the buttons impossible to undo, even when I fumble to get them open, to try and make him feel something for himself. Something that doesn't involve my destruction. I thought once, if I showed him affection, he would melt in my hands and and arms and I would play his body like a harp. I have never touched him. I've never seen his body, and he swears I never will. Does he spell the buttons to make them impossible to open?

I miss my mother, my father, who were fleetingly there and now gone forever, like snowflakes melting on eager, childish tongues. I miss Dudley, who married a witch, no less. I almost miss Aunt Petunia, who, despite her many flaws and jealousy and pettiness, had protected me with her oath to Dumbledore. In the name of her sister. My mother, so sweet, who I never knew, but in the past I could almost smell the sweet scent of her in my dreams. I don't dream anymore, but I don't have nightmares either. That all ended a long time ago, just whispering away along with my now silent snake tongue and a fading scar.

Ron...Hermione...

Now I'm trapped in the sticky web of our mutual, destructive obsession, with my eyes green as absinthe, with a wild card of a man who is stubborn and unpredictable...a known murderer, and god only knows what else. I don't want to think on it now. If I dwell on it, I'll start thinking of our future, when he finally decides he's bored of me, and will discard me how he sees fit. It was all thrilling at first, but now it's terrifying.

I shouldn't have succumbed to temptation in the first place.


	2. Chapter 2

Now I'm alone in the bedroom, a room set up just for us. He comes in unbidden, bringing me my daily meal. He doesn't starve me, no, not in the slightest. But I do feel starved from affection, from sunlight, from companionship and love and friendship. He gives me none of this, but I never asked for it in the first place. We never talk much at all. He's just there. And I'm just here.

I am not afraid now as I sit on the full bed, surprisingly lush duvet covers tucked over it. I am angry, I am brave, I am a Gryffindor.

I open my mouth to talk and then shut it. I falter at first, and then open it again. My throat hurts from lack of use. My stomach lurches. I think I need my potions again. All of the potions help my sickness. I'll die without them, he had said. He saved me and brews them to lengthen my lifespan. Is this kind of life worth it all?

Suddenly I feel like a haze has been lifted from my eyes. What those men were saying, looking for me, saying my name...Kingsley. Kingsley Shacklebolt. I remember. I remember it all now.

 _He_ doesn't seem to be Master anymore. Now he's just a complicated man with a sour soul and a bitter mind. He's just Snape, and my anger comes flooding back full force and it _burns_ through my insides and I'm shocked we're both still standing upright and not encased in flames. My palms are sweaty, and if I am going down like this, I want him to incinerate too. We can't be this deadened and lifeless, we can't be this numb together, this hopeless until we feel pain—real, harsh pain that deepens and grounds us to our dismal reality. Our little dark world in a little dark house with a dark man and two frozen hearts.

"Why?"

Snape glances at me like I'm a bit of slime on his boot. "Why what?" He turns then, avoiding my gaze to fold a clean shirt into the drawer.

That was all it took to set me off. How could he _not_ know?

"Why are you trapping me here, why do you only touch me to hurt me, do you hate me that much, are you that lonely that you reach for the barest scrap of attention like I gave you ONCE and you have me here and now you won't let me leave-"

"Disrespect! Utter disrespect, after I shelter you, I aid you, I keep you fed and clothed-"

"Caged! Imprisoned! Kept! I'm alone and stuck with YOU of all people and your nasty sorry self and all that fucking insa-"

"YOU-" he seethed, turning on his heel to bare his yellow crooked teeth " _YOU_. You CAME to me, _you_ found _me_ , when I didn't wish to be found by anyone, least of all _you_ , and you wanted this, you _want_ this, you have said you need this—"

"Not like this! Never like this! I didn't want this, never had it in mind, fuck, Snape, I've never even touched you and you—"

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME THAT ANYMORE!"

"Snape! SEVERUS SNAPE! SEV! Is that better, _Sev_? Is that what you want? Do you want her? Do you see her in me, is that what this is all about, you sick _fuck_? Or is this about my dear old dad? Better get revenge the only way you can, huh? How long have you been brainwashing me for now, I wonder..."

And Snape's neck bows down and he clutches his head as if he's in pain. His words are muffled slightly as he growls _"You_...insolent—ungrateful—not like her in the slightest-"

"Why don't you touch me ever, Snape? Why won't you let me see you? Don't you ever think about me on my knees begging for you to let me suck your cock? Do you _just_ get your jollies off by spilling my blood, my come? You disgusting freak, haven't you ever thought about—"

And if I had blinked, I'd have missed it. The barest twitch of his cheek, the vein of his temple pulsing rapidly, his shoulders sagged a bit and his eyes—angry sparking flints-and for a brief horrible instant, full of shame and embarrassment.

Realization hits me like a bludger to the gut.

"My _god_ ," I breathe, and his body shudders just _barely_ , like a thick stalk of milkweed in a light breeze. "You haven't. Ever. You don't know what to do."

His hands are tight fists and white knuckled clutching his robes. There is a stagnant silence, and neither of us says a word.

Until I laugh.

I laugh raucously at the ridiculousness of this whole farce. I laugh at him, I laugh at myself. I laugh at everything in our lives, all the years we spent hating each other at Hogwarts, I laugh at his memories after the War, I laugh at our pitiful existence, I laugh at my horrible childhood and his as well. What utter fools we both are.

"Snivellus—good old Snivelly is a _virgin!_ Sirius—Padfoot was right! What, Sniv, never stuck your prick in a cunt or arse or mouth before? Were you too scared to do it or did you freak them out first you ugly old git—"

The back handed strike lashes out and hits my lips and cheek, and his knuckles pop against my face from the heaviness of the blow. I blink with harsh green eyes and lick the fresh blood off my lips just so he can't do it himself. His eyes are flashing dangerously, but now my cares are beneath me, just like him. He is no master of mine, and I'm a wild beast with all this rage. In this moment I can't be tamed and he can't hurt me.

His furious black eyes widen comically when the thick glass I use to take my daily and nightly potions suddenly shatters on the bedside table from where it sat. He looks almost fearful now, his discomfort is masked, but I can sense it all the same. The only sound that permeates the silence is the smashed pieces of glass skittering across the wood floor.

I'm the one who holds the power now.

"Just _what_ kind of potions have you been giving me?"

He stares into me, unflinching, unwavering, but his right eyelid is just barely twitching again. I notice everything now, the stance of his body, every facial expression, all the feelings and emotions that he so carefully guarded all of his life now seem to be radiating off of him in waves, so much I can practically smell his aura like I'm a starving pack animal ready to rip him to shreds.

"ANSWER ME!" I shout, and suddenly wild, rampant magic blasts from me and rips all the shelves off the cabinets and the clothing inside them rains down. The scent of freshly laundered cotton fills my nostrils and it only makes me angrier.

"Foolish—" he begins, and I don't let him finish, because now I'm close enough to him that I can see the whites of his eyes and the little red veins that litter them, angling myself up enough to stare at him, my fingers itching to close around his throat.

Which I do. My dirty, overgrown fingernails dig into the little bit of flesh that peeks out from his collar. I wrap my hand around his neck and squeeze. He bends his head back the slightest bit and a hank of greasy black hair flops out from the shadow of his face.

"I could kill you."

My words are hissed and they might as well be Parseltongue because now he's shuttered off again as if he doesn't hear me, his eyes are closed but gently so. He doesn't scrunch up his face in hatred or anger, and he's not afraid of me like he should be.

If I didn't know any better, I'd think he actually welcomes his death.

I think that he does.

He lets out a subtle shaking sigh that pierces me like the sharp pieces of glass I had just shattered. I want to hurt this man, a man no longer my master. I want answers, because I have so many questions—but what if I can't handle what his reasons are? I can already feel more magic building up inside of me—I can't remember what my wand even looks like anymore, my mind is muddled and foggy, and my wand might as well be a useless twig. My temper could Incendio the whole house and the two of us along with it, rendering us to dully flickering embers and a pile of ash and burnt black bones. Unidentifiable and mingled together in our mutual destruction.

"No. No, that's too good for you. You want this, don't you? DON'T YOU?"

Snape doesn't answer, but his eyes are still closed and his face is still frozen in that peaceful expression. I loosen my grip on his throat and then take my hand away, just to rake a single nail up his cheek, but I scratch hard enough to draw a few beads of blood and a red line that might scab. He's so tall. Despite being older now, I'm still short for my age.

That action elicited a long sigh and his head sags back a bit. Dear god. I feel nothing but pity for this man now, and my anger slowly ebbs to the back of my mind. It's still there, but it's lessened dramatically. Questions can wait. Snape has never known true love, has never been worshiped the way I was; the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One...not idolized the way my father once was. He was hated, reviled by everyone except Dumbledore in life. He'd only known the love of my mother's friendship, and he fucked it all up and tortured himself over that horrible, rash moment, and spent the rest of his life trying to redeem himself for a pile of bones and decaying, worm eaten flesh and a spirit with bright green eyes that lay six feet in the dirt. We are much alike, in so many ways, and I _hate_ it, and I hate what we've both become. He's no master, not at all. But we're both slaves in the prison of our minds, haunted by past mistakes and the experience of so much loss.

"You should answer me."

Snape opens his eyes slowly, and his nostrils flare. "What—"

"Have you ever...have you ever fucked anyone? Have you ever been fucked?"

"That is completely inappropriate Potter and I won't—"

"Ah, but you _should_ tell me, Severus. I might get angry with you again."

And as I say his given name, he relaxes minutely, and I notice it all.

He closes his eyes hard, squeezes them shut, and I note that one single drop of a tear is dewing up at the outer corner of his eye and wetting his dark lashes. I take my nails away from his cheek to drag my fingertip across it. In the salt I taste his masked fear, his self hatred, his eternal sorrow and such loneliness-

A brief flash of Snape's thoughts and emotions suddenly runs through me as I swallow the tear down from the tip of my tongue. I can taste his need. He wants to be loved, but he knows not a single person that can ever love him. He is capable of it, oh, yes, he loved my mother, but he didn't _desire_ anything but her friendship. It was such an innocent love, ironically it's like a white angelic lily swaying all alone in a clearing, striving to reach out for the sun from under the shadow of a tree. Why would he ever tarnish such a pure thing, that childhood love, unrequited and unromantic? Their friendship filled his heart once but now it's gone, empty, his hearty is a hollow hornet nest. What could he live for? What purpose does he have? How could anyone love an ugly creature such as him?

"You're right," I whisper.

Snape's eyes snap open and he lowers his head to look at me. A wrinkle forms on his brow as if he's confused.

"I did come to you. I was looking for you. I found you, and you found me."

Snape seems as if he is at a loss for words, so I continue. I believe I've earned that right, at the very least.

"I thought you were dead. We found each other. We did, we found each other. And we're so fucked up."

His right eyelid ticks again, the same eye I gathered the tear from. I bring my hand up to touch his face softly, and he jerks back so suddenly like an untamed horse. His nostrils flare, his breath is heaving and erratic, and his eyes are wide. He steps away from me, moving his hand to his hip, which is where I know he keeps his wand. He watches me closely with suspicion and fear racing through his eyes.

I fill with unexpected sorrow as I finally see clearly that he doesn't mind pain at all, and he doesn't fear death, but any act of gentle affection seems to terrify him.

"Severus—"

"You...you don't know me. You can't. You can't, I don't...I can't let you."

I hear the unspoken truth. _He can't let HIMSELF._

"Severus."

Snape seems to respond better to his given name, so I'll keep using it. "Severus. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to touch you."

His eyes narrow. "How can I trust you, when you never trusted me, never believed me until I 'died?' No one has ever trusted me fully, no one but..."

He falls silent, and we both know whose name he was about to say. Though now that I think on it, it could have been Dumbledore. It could have been Voldemort too, but I'd like to think it was Albus. Voldemort was a genius, torturous ruse.

I put my hands up in front of me, palms up on display. "I promise. I'd give you an Oath but we don't have a witness, or my wand."

He looks ashamed again. I've never seen this man express so many emotions in such a short amount of time. God, all that this man has been through in life...and even after we thought he was dead...what happened to him? What happened in the span of those five years that drove him to this...this _insanity_?

"Your wand."

I stare, and he looks down. He may seem regrettable right now, but he's such a proud man, he's not weak in the slightest. I know him. I know this man, and he won't be torn down yet again without any trace of dignity intact. I'm quite sure of that.

"It's—it's in the warded basement cupboard. I can retrieve it for you. Since you've gathered your senses and wish to go. I advise that you leave quickly."

His words are abrupt and forced, spoken almost in a staccato rhythm.

I don't speak.

"Why would you stay." It's not a question and I know it.

It's because he's given up. No one ever stays with Snape. No one stays _for_ Snape. He's always been that one solitary, lonely, bitter man. He never expects it, either. I suppose that's what the potions he used on me were for. I had shown him that one act of kindness a year and a half ago, he felt the excitement I had shown him when I had seen him, had really _seen_ him, in the flesh, he was truly alive...

And at that time he must have realized that didn't want to lose that, because he'd never had that with anyone. No one had looked for him, even after his portrait never appeared in the Headmaster's office and when they tried to paint it, his face would disappear within moments. But I did. I figured that he was still alive somewhere, hidden away. And I had found him, all alone and lost and crazed...

"Well, you don't give me much reason too."

He looks utterly defeated, and his knees seem to wobble as he begins to walk toward the door. "I'll go get it, then." He reaches for the door knob.

"No," I say softly, and I even surprise myself.

His hand freezes on the brass knob and I can almost hear his fingers, most likely dampened with sweat, sliding on the piece of metal wetly. He's not facing me but his back is hunched and just barely shaking. It's so different from his usual ramrod straight stance.

He moves to face me, and it seems to take a thousand years for him to turn around. "What?"

"I'll stay."

"Why?" His voice is broken and tired.

I shrug nonchalantly to make him feel more comfortable, but I know we both feel anything but that. "Because I want to. I want to help you. Because I found you, and I want to stay now, despite that." I say that I want to, because I _do_ want to. I definitely don't _need_ to stay. I was the one that found his reclusive self in his own refuge, his safe haven, but that's not why I'm staying either. But I know I can help him someway, somehow, and it'll be hard with this stubborn man with so many built up, impenetrable walls. We can fix our broken minds together, and possibly, stitch up his broken soul so he can fully forgive himself at last. "Been here long enough, why not stay a little longer? Just no more of those nasty potions." As soon as I say that, a sour, painful cramp bubbles in my gut and I double over.

"It'll take a bit of time to get out of your system," Snape says, "You've...I've been administering them to you for over a year now. I will give you an antidote that will take a considerable amount of time to work, if you truly wish to stay. I have no idea why you would want to now that you know what I did..." His voice again... it's still rich and deep as it ever was, and nearly how I remember during the time we spent together in this little dank house...I remember his voice like dark silken ropes pinning me to his bedpost as I spilled blood and god knows what else—but now it's slightly different somehow. I figure it's due to the lack of whatever potions he doped me up with. His voice is more roughened, and it cracks slightly and he swallows after he speaks, but I know he won't cry. He won't let me see any more weakness. It's not in his nature.

I ponder briefly if the sandpaper edge in his voice is due to lack of speaking, or hesitation and guarded fear, or from Nagini's venom and bite. Maybe it's all of those things. Maybe there's more to it than that.

He comes closer to me, slowly, very slowly, and I don't edge away like he did before to me, when I caressed his cheek. I tip my head up to him, and he gazes into my eyes. I can feel him Occluding and he's so close now as he exhales out a deep breath, and I smell stale tea leaves and a hint of sharp-sweet lemongrass. I'm telling the truth and he knows it now. His mind isn't nearly as shuttered and closed off as it once was, so I can see bits and fragments of his thoughts as he peruses my mind. I know that in the time we've spent together he's seen me as Harry, just Harry, not Lily. That gives me some comfort at least.

He averts his eyes and breaks the connection. I feel our bodies shudder in unison. He will not look at me, and I want to say his name, but he seems so defeated. He looks the part of a crazed man stranded in the middle of the sea with nothing but planks of wet wood holding up his shipwrecked boat. He won't leave, because where could he go in the storm? They'll all hunt him like sharks, and he's been bitten too many times already and the scent of his blood is in the water, and they are eagerly waiting to feast on him.

I know this, and I back away. He steps back too, not meeting my gaze-but he's still imposing somehow-he hasn't lost every shred of his pride and dignity yet, though there isn't much left of it now. I lay down on the bed. "No more potions."

"No more potions," he agrees, and it's a simple as that, and I didn't think it'd be that easy. I am exhausted from the magic draining out of me in my fit of anger. I get under the covers, turning over on my side, facing away from him. He whispers a quick Nox. I hear him start to close the door out of habit I suppose; that door always creaks so noisily-and then he stops, and opens it more widely, and I can see the hall-light filter into the now dark room. He used to lock the door, trapping me inside until he deemed it time for me to be let out again.

I sigh and turn onto my back. What will become of us? Us, different sides of the same rusted coin, trodden underfoot yet still here, still breathing...


End file.
